The Nature Conservancy - Joe Fargione Bio

Conservation Science - Conservation and Science - Conservation Science at The Nature Conservancy

Joe Fargione
Regional Science Director
Central U.S. RegionContact Information
Phone: (612) 331-0745

E-mail: jfargione@tnc.org

Brief Biography

Dr. Joe Fargione moved to TNC after working as a research associate at both the University of Minnesota and the University of New Mexico, and as faculty at Purdue University. His past publications and research have covered issues such as the maintenance of biodiversity in ecological communities, the consequences of biodiversity loss for ecosystem services, reducing impacts of invasive species, the effects of nitrogen pollution on plant communities, and forecasting the environmental impacts of agriculturally driven global change.

Joe’s research interests at TNC focus on understanding and mitigating the effects of invasive species, climate change, and agriculture (especially biofuel production). He is particularly interested in understanding how market mechanisms such as sustainable forestry, bioenergy production, and payments for carbon offsets or other ecosystem services can promote land uses that maintain biodiversity. He is also interested in promoting watershed-scale field research on practical methods for protecting our freshwater and marine resources from the largely agricultural impacts of nutrients, sediment, and flow reduction.

Specific ongoing research efforts include:

-Effects of climate change and nitrogen pollution on desert grassland plant communities

-Putting a dollar value on the environmental and human health costs of nitrogen fertilizer

-Effects of biofuel production and associated land use change on the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses

-Prairie biomass as a source for bioenergy

-Effects of biofuel production on wildlife, including effects of increased corn acreage and perennial grass harvesting

Selected Publications:

(reprints available here: www.cedarcreek.umn.edu/people/fargione/#publications)

Clark CM, EE Cleland, SL Collins, JE Fargione, L Gough, KL Gross, SC Pennings, KN Suding, and JB Grace. Accepted. Environmental and plant community determinants of species loss following nitrogen enrichment. Ecology Letters

Baez S, J Fargione, DI Moore, SL Collins, JR Gosz. 2007. Nitrogen deposition in the northern Chihuahuan desert: Temporal trends and potential consequences. Journal of Arid Environments 68: 640-651

Diaz S, J Fargione, FS Chapin III, D Tilman. 2006. Biodiversity loss threatens human well-being. PLoS Biology 4: 1300-1305

Diaz S, D Tilman, J Fargione, et al. 2005. Biodiversity and the regulation of ecosystem services. In Millennium Ecosystem Assessment editors. Ecosystems and Human Well Being: Current State and Trends. Island Press, DC, USA

Fargione J, and D Tilman. 2005. Diversity decreases invasion via both sampling and complementarity effects. Ecology Letters, 8: 604-611

Fargione J, CS Brown, and D Tilman. 2003. Community assembly and invasion: An experimental test of neutral versus niche processes. Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, 100: 8916-8920

Fargione J, and D Tilman. 2002. Competition and coexistence in terrestrial plants. Pages 156-206 In U. Sommer and B Worm editors. Competition and Coexistence. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany

Tilman D, J Fargione, B Wolff, C D’Antonio, A Dobson, R Howarth, D Schindler, W Schlesinger, D Simberloff, and D Swackhamer. 2001. Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change. Science 292: 281-284

Link to CV: